Three jobs every range has to cover
Walk a working footwear range and you can sort every style into one of three jobs. Volume carriers: the plain, core-colored styles that sell in every season and pay the warehouse bills - cushioned everyday runners, court-inspired low trainers, casual leather sneakers, slip-ons. Season carriers: the styles that give a season its character - a chunky lifestyle runner, a retro-styled slim runner, a trail-style build - bought for the window when they are current. And test slots: small commitments in styles or size runs the channel has not proven yet, sized to be affordable if wrong. A range plan that cannot say which job each style does is not a plan; it is a wish list with a purchase order attached.
The proportions are a channel question, not a taste question. A wholesale distributor restocking shelves lives mostly in volume carriers. An online store building a brand page needs season carriers to give shoppers a reason to look. Almost every range needs at least one test slot per season, because the cost of a test - a few mixed cartons on the stock route - is trivial next to the cost of not knowing what your market wants next year. What stays constant is that volume carriers fund the experiments, so they get the money first.
Depth: colors and size runs
Depth decisions beat style counts. Per style, two questions: how many colors, and which size run. Colors concentrate or spread the same quantity - two colors at depth move more units per color and look stronger on a shelf or a listing page than six colors at token depth. That is why the stock list itself sits in core colors: blacks, whites, greys and browns that move across seasons. Seasonal colorways are real, but they belong to the route where a design is made to order, so depth is planned rather than bought and left over.
Size runs are the other half of depth. Most stock models run EU 36-45, with some women's and kids' runs at 36-41, and pairs step 1-2-3-3-2-1 across the six size steps of the run - more pairs in the middle sizes, fewer at the ends. That fixed shape is a reasonable first assumption for many channels, and it is also a measurement tool: whichever steps sell out first in season one are the steps your range is starving, and the record you take into the next RFQ. For mapping EU steps onto the scales your customers shop, the approximate table on the shoe size chart page is the working reference - final grading is always confirmed on the spec sheet per program.
The range plan, as a table
| Range layer | Job it does | Natural source | Depth rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volume carriers | Sell in every season; fund the rest of the range | Stock route, core colors | Deepest layer; reorder to a measured rate |
| Season carriers | Give the season its character and its reasons to look | OEM designs, or stock where the list carries them | Planned depth for one season, then reviewed |
| Extensions | Cover kids' and women's fits the main run misses | Kids' and women's runs at EU 36-41 | Matched to the size curve the channel proves |
| Test slots | Answer what the market wants next | Mixed stock cartons, or small OEM on a shared platform | Small on purpose; killed or promoted at season end |
How the two routes split a range
The split follows the jobs. Stock, by its nature, is the volume-carrier layer: finished shoes in core colors, mixed models allowed within a carton of 12 pairs, picked on confirmation and typically dispatched within days. OEM is the season-carrier and signature layer: your design, sampled in about 15-30 days, produced in about 45-60 days after approval, carrying your labels and box from the start. A mature range runs both at once and moves styles between them - a trend tested in a mixed carton this season becomes an OEM style next season if it earns it, and a proven OEM platform spawns the following year's new uppers at a fraction of the development cost. Read the stock route and the OEM route as complements, not alternatives.
Sizing the range to the channel
Channels discipline range plans differently. Marketplace and online sellers feel the cost of breadth in photography, listings and returns, so a tight range of styles, each photographed and described properly, outperforms a long thin list; the note on selling sneakers online covers the page side. Wholesale buyers feel breadth differently - shelves want variety, but every style still has to turn - so breadth spreads across models while depth concentrates in the core colors. Stores with limited floor space plan in facings first and cartons second. Whichever channel you run, the honest unit of range planning is the carton: 12 pairs in a size run, mixed models allowed. A range that cannot be expressed in cartons is not orderable, and a plan that ignores the carton will be rewritten by it. The lot buying guide shows what that looks like in practice.
The kids' and women's extension
Ranges that serve families or uniform buyers need the EU 36-41 runs treated as a layer of their own, not an afterthought. Kids' styles - chunky kids' sneakers, casual kids' builds - sell on fit, durability and plain styling that schools and parents accept, and they ride a replacement cycle of their own: feet grow, shoes are replaced, and the buyer who fits that curve gets the reorder. Women's runs at 36-41 let a proven style serve a second audience without a separate development program. Both extensions are live on the stock list today, and they plan like any other layer: pick the job, set the depth, record which steps sell. The kids' sneakers hub gives the category view.
Writing the plan down
A range plan becomes an RFQ in five lines per style: style family or reference, colors, size run, carton count, and the job the style does. The desk turns that into a program sheet against the live list, or a spec sheet for sampling, and the parts that were guesses get replaced by figures confirmed in writing. Bring the plan to the request form as it is - half-filled cells are fine; they are what the first reply is for. The note on trend cycles and core stock covers how the season-carrier layer should be judged at season end, which is the other half of range discipline.